Often it is desirable to mark areas on land so that the area can be easily identified and located. For instance, targets to be destroyed during military operations are often marked. In other military applications, markers are used to identify friend or foe.
Current target markers usually include a smoke producing pyrotechnic composition, such as a phosphorous obscurant compositions. Phosphorous rounds, which explode and scatter burning phosphorous, produce a large amount of heat and have been known to start fires. At night, such smoke producers are not covert because they produce visible light. Another known target marker, described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,940,605, is a chemiluminescent lighting apparatus which emits visible light. Yet another target marking device, described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,745,324, is a parachute soaked in a chemiluminescent agent which is dropped to the desired location.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,448,106 describes a device for marking hard targets, such as bridges, dams, boatways, bunkers, tanks, submarines, armed vehicles, and the like. The disclosed hard target markers include kinetic penetrator elements which partially penetrate the hard target. The penetrator elements may radiate energy upon impact, such as a radio frequency or a light emitted by a flare or a luminous dye.
From the foregoing, it will be appreciated that it would be an advancement in the art to provide a covert target marker which does not emit visible light but which is capable of marking target during the day or night.
Such covert target markers are disclosed and claimed herein.